


Down the Rabbit Hole (and Back Again)

by lonniek



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Allison Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Fingering, Begging, Bottom Derek Hale/Top Stiles Stilinski, Bottoming from the Top, Breathplay, Canon-Typical Violence, Cock Rings, Cock Worship, Collars, Deepthroating, Derek's Past Consent Issues with Kate, Dom Stiles, Edgeplay, Established Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Orgasm Denial, Paddling, Past Kate Argent/Derek Hale, Past Rape/Non-con, Porn With Plot, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Spanking, Sub Derek, Top Derek Hale/Bottom Stiles Stilinski, Topping from the Bottom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-22
Packaged: 2018-04-02 12:35:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4060234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lonniek/pseuds/lonniek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Stiles,” Scott said gently, like he was talking to a feral cat trapped in a corner. “Gin can’t hurt you. I mean, sure you’ll have a nasty hangover, but—“</p><p>“Not the alcohol, Scott. Jesus, buddy, have you even—nevermind. Not gin, Scott. Jinn.” Scott blinked at him blankly.</p><p>“You know you just said the same word twice, dude, right?”</p><p>“No, Scott, I did not just say the same word twice.” Stiles sighed hard, exasperated. “They’re like…evil genies. Not lamp rubbing, Robin Williams ‘three wishes coming right up’ genies, either, man. We’re talking sucking all of your life energy, stranded in a dream world until you die genies.” Still, Scott stared, but the corners of his eyes crinkled like he understood the severity of the situation.</p><p>“So, how are we supposed to stop it?”</p><p>"Well, have you ever seen that episode of Supernatural?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Dream of Genie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [erisgregory](https://archiveofourown.org/users/erisgregory/gifts).



> Okay, so this is my THANK YOU fic because erisgregory wrote me the most amazing story ever like...oh my GOD. So I wanted to thank her properly, and what way to do that other than to write porn? Just that niggling plot got in the way. And ran away from me. So this is going to be a lot more than just shameless porn. You're welcome/I'm sorry?
> 
> Please note that the Rape/Non-con warning is for conversations about Derek's past relationship with Kate Argent, and has NOTHING to do with his completely and totally consensual relationship with Stiles.
> 
> Right, enjoy!

It was the crack of his skull on the bedroom floor that woke Stiles up. He blinked his eyes open and swung his arms, suddenly and painfully awake as he tried to reorient himself. It was a slow process before his night came rushing back to him. Then, he looked to the right and found the computer chair he’d fallen out of. Right, research. With a groan, Stiles hauled himself back up into the chair and grabbed his phone. The first thing he saw was the time, and he made a face. At 5:30, it was too late to try and go back to bed, but too early to actually be awake and functioning. He had two missed text messages from Scott checking in on him, and a missed call from Derek. He listened to the voicemail and, satisfied that it was nothing more than the man double checking that he was still breathing, texted him a response. Then he dropped his phone back onto the desk and pushed his face through his hands, exhaling sharply.

While he appreciated and loved that his friends were insistent on making sure that he was okay, that he was alive and that he was still himself, the constant checking, the texts and the phone calls and the seemingly nonchalant and “totally unplanned” pack movie and take out was starting to wear thin. It also left a bunch of food for his dad to pick over, and Stiles made a mental note to tell Scott that the next time he planned to have the pack over, the two of them were going to have a long talk about what food was allowed under the Stilinski roof. Maybe being forbidden from bringing over greasy food would deter them from coming over at all.

“Doubt it,” Stiles muttered, and pushed back from the desk. He looked at the pages scattered across the wood surface and sighed, shutting his laptop and making his way for the bathroom. More research would wait for coffee and Adderall.

After washing his face and brushing his teeth and finally dragging himself into the world of the more or less awake, Stiles made his way downstairs, careful not to creak on the seventh step so he didn’t wake his dad. Sure, trust the man to sleep through Stiles falling out of his chair at all hours of the day, but the moment the stair creaked, the sheriff was up. Noisy step avoided, Stiles stretched as he padded into the kitchen, pausing when he saw what his dad had been working on the night before.

The newspaper spread out on the kitchen table was the same thing he’d been working on upstairs, and he knew that he took after his father in the way they went about their research. The first page of the paper and the rest of the pages containing the story were crammed together, sharing the space with his dad’s notes on the case and an empty glass. Stiles didn’t have to look at the paper to know what the headline read: FOUR FOUND INSIDE ABANDONED WAREHOUSE, 3 DEAD AT SCENE. Stiles knew there were no leads. He’d insisted on listening in on his dad’s conversations—Stiles had long since dispelled with the pretense that he only listened to the interesting ones: after the nogitsune, cautious was the only thing that Stiles could afford to be.

Stiles forced his eyes away from the notes for a moment while he set up the coffee machine. He set the decaf bag open on the counter, prepping a second coffee filter for his dad’s pot. The routine was familiar to him: one pot for him, the second for his dad. The smell of the first pot of brewing coffee would be enough to wake his dad, so Stiles knew he had a limited amount of time to really rifle through his dad’s papers before the sheriff would trudge, slow and steady, down the stairs in search of liquid sustenance. Then Stiles would make breakfast and his father would continue to refuse to share all of the pertinent facts about the case with his son. If he was going to take his chance, it was going to be now.

Coffee brewing, Stiles leaned over the table, long fingers scanning through pages of chicken scratch scribble and typed Beacon Hills Police Department notes. All of the victims seemed to have died from exhaustion, though there were no marks on the bodies other than the chain marks on their wrists suggesting that they’d been strung up. That they hadn’t struggled against their restraints. They’d simply…let themselves die. Stiles sighed; all of what his dad knew was stuff that he’d already been told. A pang of guilt hit him as he realized that his dad wasn’t actually hiding things from him, but here he was snooping like he was still just a kid trying to get the juicy details from the cases his dad wouldn’t talk about. His guilt abated when he remembered how determined the sheriff was to convince his son that there was absolutely nothing supernatural about the string of kidnappings.

“Just your average, kidnapping psycho, son. Please don’t get involved with this one, all right?” John had tried to assure his son the night before. But Stiles rationalized that there was no way for his dad to know that, not really. Sure, all they really knew was that the bodies were snatched within two weeks of each other, and that they were kept chained up in the warehouse district of Beacon Hills, but Stiles could feel the pull in his gut that had him certain there was something inhuman about this.

One victim in particular convinced Stiles that they were looking for something supernatural. The most recent victim had been taken four days earlier, and the police department managed to find the place and get the girl to the hospital before she’d succumbed to her wounds. Before she died, his father told him that night as he plied him for details, even the things that didn’t make sense, she was mumbling about how there was a man with glowing red tattoos and that he took her to see her sister.

“She was delirious, Stiles,” John pled with his son, seeing the frantic look in his eyes at the mention of glowing tattoos. “She was fighting for her _life_. Let it go. Please.” It killed Stiles to nod at his dad, to pretend that he was really trying to relax and take it easy after everything that had happened. But he couldn’t, not really. And Stiles thought his dad knew that, too. For all of the things that John Stilinski was, an idiot was not among them. Stiles checked the girls’ name, Katlyn Geare, online that night before he’d gone to bed. Her sister, Robin, died in a car crash seven years before that. It was this fact that had prompted his seclusion and Wikipedia binge.

Granted, it had only lasted for two days, which was a lot shorter than some of his other stints, so Stiles was considering this one a win.

Minutes later, the seventh step creaked, and Stiles pulled his pot of coffee off the warmer and set his dad’s pot up. The sheriff came into the room, looked at the wall clock, and then back at Stiles.

“Morning,” Stiles said too cheerfully, breaking the silence between them. His dad grunted in response and sat down at the table without really opening his eyes. Still half-squinting, he closed up all of his files and tucked them into a messy pile at the corner of the table. Stiles poured himself a cup of coffee and got a frying pan out of the cabinet, setting about making breakfast.

It was another ten minutes before breakfast was in front of the pair of them and still two more before John opened his mouth to do something other than shovel food into it.

“You’re up early,” he said, voice cautious around a piece of turkey bacon and a mouthful of egg white omelet.

“I fell out of bed,” Stiles said and shrugged. His dad seemed to accept this as a natural course of action, and they continued on with the rest of their breakfast in amiable silence until the sheriff rose to collect the dishes and take them over to the sink.

“You’re not…you’re going to leave it alone, right, son?” Stiles trained his eyes on the grain of the wood in the table, suddenly very interested in thinking about how many trees had to die for this particular table to be made possible.

“I’m not going to let it go,” he said finally, and he felt his father tense behind him. “Because you’re involved. And I just…I want to make sure that you’re safe. I don’t plan on following you to the crime scene or anything. But I want you to be careful. I don’t…you can’t get hurt.” Stiles’ voice trailed off, and John’s hand, strong and paternal, came to rest on his son’s shoulder. He squeezed, and Stiles leaned into the touch, trying to will away the dirty feeling in his soul for being right back in the position of telling half-truths.

“I’m not going anywhere, Stiles,” his dad reassured him, then patted his shoulder before adding, “except for work. I’m going to the diner for dinner.” Stiles turned around to level him with a look. “Where I will order the salad with roasted garlic chicken breast because I have allowed myself to ingest nothing but artery-clogging snacks left by my son’s irresponsible friends.” Stiles nodded, and his dad snorted, but Stiles knew he would do as he’d said.

“I’ll be back by ten.”

“Love you, Dad.”

“Love you, too, son.” And just like that, his father was getting dressed and leaving for work, stopping briefly to grab his notes and the travel mug of coffee Stiles held out for him. It took all of his will-power not to watch him leave from the window, just to make sure that he wasn’t dreaming. He didn’t have the urge to check that often anymore, but whenever someone left, promised to come back, the obsessive pangs tugged at him. To ease the tension in his chest, Stiles bounded back upstairs into his room, seeking solace in his research.

In all of the reading that he had done, Stiles had come up with about a half dozen magical creatures with the ability to suck someone dry while leaving them no opportunities to fight back, and color-coded stacks of paper spread across his desk helped him feel like he was in control of the situation again, like he had an idea of what he was supposed to be looking for.

He was half an hour into reading about the origins of the Jinn when he heard his window open. Stiles held up a hand at the window to greet Derek, silent as he ran a pink highlighter across a large swath of text, then traded the highlighter for a pen in a matching color to write a note in the margin of another sheet of paper.

“Hey,” he mumbled around the highlighter in his mouth. Derek leaned against the window instead of coming closer, and it was only then that Stiles frowned and put down his work, capping the pen and the marker and swiveling the chair to face the other man. Derek remained aggressively silent. “What?” There was still no answer, but Derek’s eyebrow twitched almost like he was hurt that Stiles had to ask. “Fuck, Derek, what did I do?” he growled, and the eyebrow twitch turned into a face full of open offense.

“You told me not to come over the other night. On Wednesday,” he nearly whispered, and Stiles closed his eyes and hissed as he remembered exactly what he said, thought about the implications.

“Oh.”

“Did I—“ Derek stuttered, and Stiles was out of his seat before Derek could finish his sentence, covering his mouth with a finger to silence him and taking him by the hand. He tugged, and reluctantly, Derek followed him to the desk. He took in the mess of papers scattered on the desk and the floor, the way that Stiles smelled like caffeine and looked like sleepless nights and then nodded. Stiles sighed, sagging in relief, and sat down on the edge of the bed. Derek followed him, stopped short for a nanosecond, and then sat down as well, leaving a whole foot of space between them.

“No, none of that,” Stiles dismissed, waving his hand, and he heard Derek let out the breath he was holding before he scooted closer, until their thighs were pressed together. “Better.”

“I missed you,” Derek chanced, quietly. Stiles started to tell Derek that he missed him, too, but honestly he’d been too caught up in trying to figure out what was in Beacon Hills that he hadn’t missed much more than coffee and sleep.

“I know,” he settled for instead. Derek looked down at the floor. “No, no, hey. Look at me,” Stiles whispered, taking his chin between his fingers. Derek’s eyes were bright, uncertain, and in that moment, Stiles felt like the largest asshole.

“Wednesdays are supposed to be for _us_.” Stiles nodded.

“I know. I’m sorry. You didn’t do anything, I promise you that. I just got mixed up in all of this, and I didn’t want to get distracted and I cancelled everything. But I never…I never forgot about you Derek, not once. I want you to be safe. I want us to be safe. I don’t want…I just want whatever’s here to go so that Wednesdays can be for us and so that my dad stays safe and so that—“

Derek took a deep breath and sighed. “Stiles.” Stiles shut his mouth with a quiet snap. It was then that Derek could really see how little sleep Stiles had gotten in the last forty-eight hours, how stressed something else in Beacon Hills made him. It unsettled Derek, and he squeezed Stiles’ hand with his, trying to show that he understood. “I just…you could have called me back. You texted me and told me you were fine and you’d talk to me later? I thought you were mad at me. I thought…” And Derek hated that he needed Stiles so much, needed him to reassure himself that he was important and that he was loved. But he also knew that Stiles needed someone underneath him, someone to help him right the power balance that had tilted Stiles off-kilter.

“I know, I know. In my defense, I was three quarters of the way asleep when I texted you back last.” The look that Derek leveled him with rivaled the looks that Stiles gave his father about the way he ate. “I slept. Really. I fell out of my chair. I’m fine. I’m still sleeping okay.” He didn’t mention the nightmares. He never needed to: Derek always knew. “I’m…I’m almost done reading through this stuff here. Let me finish this and then it’s you and me,” he offered, and Derek nodded, letting his forehead rest against Stiles’. He reminded himself that this was the one-track mind that had saved their lives more times that Derek could count. He could give Stiles that much.

Stiles made the five foot journey from his bed to his desk chair and scooted back into the hole among the piles of papers. He leafed through a stack on the floor and grabbed a couple thick stacks before putting them on the desk, relegating another impressive pile to the corner.

“Come kneel.” The command came easily, and Derek was up and at his feet in an instant, sinking down onto his knees in the space that Stiles cleared for him. Absently, Stiles ran his fingers through the top of Derek’s head, and Derek leaned into Stiles’ leg for a moment, sharing his appreciation at the touch. “Will you be okay there while I read?”

“Yes, Stiles.”

“One word answers already. I’m sorry I cancelled on you.”

“I understand why you did.”

“I know you understand why I did it,” Stiles sighed, looking down at the thick tresses of Derek’s hair. He knew Derek felt the stare, but also knew he wouldn’t look up until he was instructed to. “It doesn’t mean that I feel good about doing it. I want to take care of you.” Derek froze for a moment, thinking over what Stiles said, and then nodded again.

“Give me thirty minutes,” he said, and relaxed when Derek shifted to get comfortable in his kneeling position.

“Thirty minutes, Stiles,” Derek confirmed.

With that settled, Stiles turned back to his computer, clicking open a few links that he hadn’t bothered to print out. He rearranged post-it notes and shucked piles of paper into the trash as he matched up his notes with what he’d seen of his father’s. The smaller the pile on the desk became, and the less paper was on the floor, the more in control Stiles felt. Passively, he would swipe his fingers through Derek’s hair while he thought, occasionally twisting his fingers in the small hairs at the base of Derek’s neck. He heard the near-silent sigh of contentment that pushed past Derek’s lips, and it put a smile on his own. He picked up the next stack of papers feeling more grounded.

While he was more than glad to have the man with him, it also meant that the thirty minutes went a lot faster than he’d expected them to. He exited a number of tabs, though plenty of new ones had risen to take the place of the closed ones, and he finished scribbling a note from a website before he closed that one. Then, he highlighted his message to himself, written in his tight, messy scrawl: _beg Lydia to translate this Arabic…double beg Lydia to teach you some foreign languages_.

He groaned, his head full of information that was still floating, sorting itself as it was catalogued. He’d learned a bunch about spell-casters and witches, but none of them seemed to have the power to be able to pull energy from people with this kind of intensity. It left him digging deep into the myths and truths of the Jinn, and Stiles could scarcely believe that he was really investigating where _genies_ came from. The Jinn, he learned, came in different sizes and varying degrees of dangerous. Red Jinn—which Stiles had circled as a point of interest because of the tattoos—were hostile and aggressive, not to mention powerful. They were vicious and often interfered with human life because they thought they could. They could fabricate alternate realities as easy as breathing, trapping someone within their mind.

All of what he learned had him reeling, shuddering as he felt the remnants of cold tendrils on his heart, where the nogitsune had grabbed him, the one place he couldn’t open up and scrub until it felt clean. If there was something else out there that could blur the lines between dreams and reality, Stiles was determined that it needed to be stopped. He sighed and rolled his neck, looked down one final time, and set his pen down, the signal that he was actually done working. It was only after that motion that Derek took Stiles’ hand and pulled him to the bed. Stiles went willingly. His whole body ached with what he learned and the memory that it could all be happening again. Derek’s warmth would bring him back, anchor him in the now.

Stiles got onto the bed first, wriggling his way up the bed until his back hit the headboard. Derek joined him, lying with his head in Stiles’ lap. For a long while, they sat in silence like that, Stiles intermittently stroking and scratching through Derek’s hair. It was a calming routine for the both of them. Derek knew it was Stiles’ way of coming down, of processing, and Stiles knew that it helped Derek feel connected when they weren’t in the middle of a scene. The gentle caresses were a contrast from all of the blood, all of the pain and the hurt and the tears and for both of them, the ease of it was dictionary-definition _nice_.

Derek broke the silence, turning his face up to kiss Stiles’ palm. “Tell me what you found out?” Stiles nodded and slowly began to work through what he’d discovered in his research. He spared no detail, and received a fond chuckle as he imitated his father trying to plead with him to leave this alone, like it wasn’t going to be something supernatural.

“The day that there’s actually just a psychopathic serial killer in Beacon Hills that has nothing to do with the supernatural is the day that I will, happily I might add, retire from my position as resident researcher.” Derek nodded quietly, kissing Stiles palm again. He knew that Stiles was tired of always having to be vigilant, but he also knew he would do it until something killed him. The guilt he felt at knowing that truth burned through him every moment that he relived the pain of the nogitsune, thought about the fact that Stiles really had almost gotten himself killed to try and save everyone. “But anyway, this Jinn thing, it’s serious business,” Stiles concluded with a sigh. “Now hop up, I love having your head in my lap but I can’t feel anything below my knees.”

Derek switched positions, turning onto his side to allow Stiles to wrap his arms over broad shoulders. Stiles loved to be held. He loved to curl up small and tight and let Derek protect him after a scene, but sometimes Derek needed to be held, too. Baring his back to Stiles was all he needed to do, and Stiles would give him what he needed. He always did. Stiles leaned forward to kiss Derek’s left shoulder blade and settled into the caress easily.

“Have you managed to figure anything out?” Stiles asked after a few minutes of quiet, easy breathing. Derek shook his head, paused, and then shrugged. “Care to elaborate?” he snorted.

“I don’t know, really. Every time I get close to a scent, it just…disappears. I went poking around the bodies. One of them had already been dead for six days by the time he was found. That meant it only took him two and a half days to die, Stiles. Healthy, active men don’t die of exhaustion after two days of being chained to a rafter. None of it makes any sense.” Frustration colored Derek’s tone, and Stiles could hear the way Derek’s nostrils flared the way they did whenever they had more questions than answers.

“Easy,” Stiles whispered as Derek tensed underneath him, squeezing tighter until he felt the tension start to leak out of the knots gathered in the werewolf’s back. “You know, it’s funny. This one actually makes a lot of sense to me.” Derek made a soft sound for Stiles to continue. “The only reason I decided to look up Jinn in the first place was because of Supernatural, and—don’t snort at me—all of the signs from that show pointed to it. There was a whole episode about it and it came to mind when I heard that people weren’t fighting to get away. Just…wasting away with no recollection of where or who they were. And the more I learned, the more sense it made.

“Like, if you’re dreaming and never really conscious, then you’re not going to try and fight while some turbo-powered genie sucks your life out of you, are you?” There was no more derisive snorting from Derek’s end, so Stiles figured that Derek was actually thinking over what Stiles had told him.

“TV never gets anything right,” was all that Derek gave him in response. Playing irritated, Stiles huffed and rolled away from the embrace. “Where are you going?”

“I’m getting my computer, and if I have to tie you up to get you to sit here and watch the next forty minutes of this damn episode, then I’m going to. I swear it makes sense, Derek. And honestly, the writers may know a little bit of what they’re talking about.” Derek glared at him. “Okay, granted, not about werewolves, but you have to admit that the show hires good researchers. At least the stuff _sounds_ authentic.”

“Stiles,” Derek whined, rubbing a tired hand over his scruff. He only did that when he was trying really hard to think about how best to say what he needed to without offending what he considered ‘Stiles’ delicate sensibilities’. Stiles took a deep breath and braced himself for the gentle letdown. “Seriously, Stiles, you have to be careful,” Derek cautioned, taking Stiles’ hand and pulling it to rest on his chest, needing to feel the comfort of the long, sinewy fingers on his chest, fingers that would never hurt him. “I’ve only ever _heard_ of things like this existing, so I shouldn’t have to tell you how dangerous it’s going to be if you get involved in this.”

“I’m already involved,” he countered.

“If you get any _more_ involved,” Derek sighed. “Look, you know I hate to do this, but maybe your dad is right. Maybe you should—“

“He’s _not_ going to deal with this.”

“Not about that. But about you not. Dealing with this. Let the rest of the pack handle it. _Please_.” Stiles sighed, closed his eyes, and thought about what he’d been staring at earlier. The Jinn absorbed the power of the creature that it kept in its web. By that theory, if a werewolf or another supernatural being were taken, the Jinn’s power would increase exponentially by the power in that creature. He wasn’t going to let that monster feast on his friends, his pack, his _family_ , growing stronger all the time. No. He would put an end to it.

“Stiles.”

Stiles jumped. “Huh?”

“Promise you’ll let us handle it.” He nodded.

“Yes, yes, I’ll let the pack take care of it,” he said, waving away the concern with his hand. Derek was mollified and hadn’t considered that Stiles had said pack, not _the rest of the pack_. And since Stiles was pack, it was _technically_ not a lie. And a technicality was all Stiles needed. As a spark, Stiles knew that he could draw out the Jinn, find its hiding spot. The Jinn, sensing his power, would try and kidnap him, and then Stiles would have a chance to defeat it and prove to everyone once and for all that he wasn’t just made for destruction. Maybe he could prove it to himself. He would be in control this time; he would be the hero. All he had to do now was convince someone to come with him. Stiles drummed his fingers against Derek’s chest to the beat of his heart for a few minutes before he got restless and Derek got up.

“I’m going to go insane if you don’t sit still, so I’ll let you get back to researching. Please take it easy.” Stiles nodded and leaned forward. Derek met him for the kiss halfway, subdued and chaste, but warm. Solid. Stiles smiled into the kiss and felt Derek do the same. They kissed again, and then pulled away. Derek got up first, and as he made his way over to the window, fixed Stiles with a look that he knew all too well. Stiles rolled his eyes, but let Derek say his piece. He knew it would make him feel better if he could pretend that giving the command was going to do something.

“Don’t go looking for it. Under _no_ circumstances are you to go out into the warehouse district. You’re going to let the pack handle this, and you’re going to stay safe.”

“Yes, dear,” Stiles cooed, his voice sticky sweet and condescending. Derek tilted an eyebrow, but Stiles winked and blew him a kiss. “Be safe getting home, okay?”

“Be safe staying home.” And then Derek was gone. Stiles watched the window for a few minutes before closing it. His phone was in his palm as he swung the lock shut and was dialing Lydia’s number by the time his ass hit his computer chair.

Lydia answered on the third ring, huffing a polite hello that meant she hadn’t had time to check her caller ID before answering the phone.

“Lydia, sweetheart, angel cakes, genius—“

“What do you want, Stiles?”

“You wound me, Lyds! I can’t just call you and regale you with tales of how perfect and wonderful you are?” There was silence on the other line. Stiles felt the force of her displeasure in the form of pursed lips, her million mile stare boring into his soul from the other end of the phone. “Okay, okay, jeez. I was wondering if you could translate something for me.”

“What language?”

“I love it when you get all professional on me.”

“Some of us have things we’d like to do today, Stiles.” He pulled his phone away from his ear and checked the time. Almost nine. Shit, he hadn’t meant to interrupt her morning, and he wasn’t really sure how much time he’d spent pent up in his research before Derek showed up.

“Sorry. It’s Arabic.” He gave her a brief synopsis of what he’d figured out while he emailed her the file. He heard the double click of her mouse while she opened the attachment and listened to her mumble quietly for a moment.

“Stiles, do you have any idea what you’re getting yourself into? I think maybe you should talk to Derek about—“

“He was just here, Lydia. Please, just…I need to feel useful.” There was silence on the line for a long, tense moment before Lydia sighed.

“Get a pen.” Stiles did as he was told and wrote quickly while she translated, pausing to circle key words and phrases that stuck out. When she was finished, she sighed again, but it was softer this time. It was the pity sigh. Stiles closed his eyes.

“You know, none of us—“

“Thanks for your help, Lyds. I swear, you’re going to have to teach me how you know so many damn languages one day,” he said, barreling through her attempts at showing the sympathy that Stiles was convinced he didn’t need or deserve.

“Just promise you’re not going to be an idiot about whatever it is you won’t tell me you’re going to do.” That made him smile.

“Would I have called you if I were going to be an idiot?” he asked, and she huffed at him before telling him, again, to be careful before she hung up. Stiles sat back for a moment after he tossed the phone onto his bed, looking at all of what he’d just written down. When the realization that he was in way over his head hit him, Stiles groaned and pushed away from the desk with as much force as he could muster. He wanted a drink, and it was only ten in the morning. He wanted to go back to sleep, but it was already ten in the morning. He took a deep breath and made a face, smelling himself. Derek hadn’t said anything, he wouldn’t, but Stiles didn’t like when he could smell himself. That must have been why Derek was so adamant that Stiles stay put, take care of himself.

“Stupid, oversensitive werewolf,” he growled, but stalked off to the bathroom all the same.

In the shower, Stiles had time to formulate the rest of his plan, and to chew on what Derek told him. It wasn’t that he didn’t listen to the man outright. It was never intentional that way. But Derek had a way of… _phrasing_ his requests as commands, and it woke something in Stiles that made him itch to disobey. If Derek would just learn to _ask_ for something, and to explain, really explain why it was a bad idea, Stiles figured that maybe he would listen.

He sighed and watched suds run down his calf. No, he wouldn’t. He knew how dangerous this was and was still planning to charge in headfirst. The spray of water in his face helped to clear his mind. This was a good thing. He didn’t need anyone else to get hurt, not when he’d done all this research and could take care of it on his own. Plus, he rationalized, letting his sensationalism overtake him for a moment; how often was it that you really got to fight a frickin’ _genie_!?

Stiles hopped out of the shower, energy renewed, and bounded back to his room to get dressed, dialing Scott’s number and putting it on speaker phone while he threw on boxers and pulled a pair of gently-used jeans from the dirty clothes hamper overflowing in his closet.

“Scott, dude. I’m coming over. We have a lot to talk about.”


	2. According to Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott is not easily convinced to go hunting for the Jinn that Stiles insists they find and kill before it can get to anyone else in Beacon Hills. Of course, Scott thinks, things go about as well as they usually do. We also get a glimpse into how Derek and Stiles realized they might just need each other.

The final few yards of road were littered with uneven gravel chunks clunking the underbelly of his jeep as Stiles pulled up against the curb of the McCall residence. Melissa’s car was gone, so he let himself inside and knocked as he stepped over the threshold to Scott’s room.

"Scott? Yo, Scotty," he called as the boy in question walked into view. It took all of two and a half minutes of recounting what he’d learned before Scott’s face was set in a grim line, not quite a scowl, but certainly not the excitement Stiles had been hoping for.

Scott was not going to be easily convinced.

“Stiles,” Scott said gently, like he was talking to a feral cat trapped in a corner. “Gin can’t hurt you. I mean, sure you’ll have a nasty hangover, but—“

“Not the _alcohol_ , Scott. Jesus, buddy, have you even—nevermind. Not _gin_ , Scott. Jinn.” Scott blinked blankly at him.

“You know you just said the same word twice, dude, right?”

“No, Scott, I did not just say the same word twice,” he snapped. Stiles sighed hard, exasperated. “They’re like…evil genies. Not lamp rubbing, Robin Williams ‘three wishes coming right up’ genies, either, man. We’re talking sucking all of your life energy, stranded in a dream world until you _die_ genies.” Still, Scott stared, but the corners of his eyes crinkled like he understood the severity of the situation.

“So, how are we supposed to stop it?”

“Well, have you seen that episode of Supernatural?”

And that’s was all it took for Scott and Stiles to flesh out the rest of Stiles’ plan to use himself as bait by poking around at night to try and find the Jinn’s lair. They’d argued over the finer points of the plan, like how the whole thing was insane and how Scott should call Derek and let him know what Stiles was planning to do, but after threatening to tell Allison all about Scott’s tryst with Isaac while he and Allison were “on a break,” he relented.

“Scott, for the love of—take _off_ the jacket. When I said that we got to play hunters, it did _not_ mean we were really stepping into an episode of Supernatural.” Stiles rubbed his temples as Scott made his way out of the bedroom in one of Derek’s old leather jackets.

“No fair. If you’re going to _make me_ go along with this stupid plan, the least you could do is not be a total dick about it,” he complained, but took off the jacket when Stiles continued to glare at him. “You need to spend less time with Derek. You’re getting way too good at that.” Stiles didn’t take the bait, but pushed himself off the bed and made his way to Scotts bedroom door.

“Right, let’s go.”

They stopped at Deaton’s, where Scott ran inside and came back out a few minutes later with a brown paper bag. Stiles fought the urge to gag, pointedly did not ask Scott where he’d gotten it from, and put the jeep in reverse. The rest of the drive to the warehouse district was quiet once Stiles vetoed ant and all 80s rock music on the ride over—“We are _not_ the goddamn Winchesters, Scott!” When the houses leveled out into empty lots and concrete buildings, Stiles pulled over. He hopped out of the car and took a picture of where he’d parked with Scott’s phone.

“Send this to Derek and my dad if I’m not back in two hours,” he instructed, reminding Scott once again of the plan as he shouldered his backpack. The knife and the jar of blood in his bag rattled together as they shifted. The flashlight was in his hand already, just waiting for it to be dark enough to use. Scott looked like he wanted to go, too, bouncing on his toes with his hands jammed into his pockets.

“Stiles—“

“You have to stay here. It’s no good id we’re both genie food at the end of all this,” he explained again. “Scott nodded, but his doubt, which hadn’t waned since that afternoon, was etched into the worry lines on his face.

“It feels like you’re doing this on purpose, Stiles. Like you want to go in there and get yourself killed like the nogitsune didn’t manage to do. I get that this is still hard for you, but it’s no reason to blaze in on some suicide mission that—“ It was more the surprise of the punch than the pain of it that shocked Scott into silence. In front of him, Stiles seethed.

“Don’t you dare. It’s not a suicide mission and you know it. I’ve gotta keep them safe, keep you safe. I can’t let this keep happening. Nobody else is going to die, and I’m not letting this damn Jinn find out there are _werewolves_ here. No. My friends aren’t getting hurt this time. Believe me or don’t, but you wait here and don’t you _dare_ come after me.” Scott nodded slowly and got back into the jeep, leaving the door hanging open.

“I’m coming back,” Stiles assured him as he started to walk away. “Two hours. I’ll be back.”

It only took five minutes of wandering into the alleys behind the individual warehouses before Stiles decided to turn on his flashlight. The buildings around him devoured what was left of the sunlight and blocked any moonlight that might have trickled down. He pulled his hoodie tighter around his neck, suddenly cold, and continued to trek through the thick, inky darkness. After walking for a few blocks, he found a warehouse door that had caved in, either from aging or from pressure. Stiles took a picture of it and texted it to Scott.

_Send this if I’m not back, too. Looks like the right warehouse._

_COME BACK. We’ll look together._ Scott’s reply sent chills up Stiles’ spine as the phone buzzed in his hand. He hadn’t expected it to be so quick, but he realized that Scott was sitting in the jeep, waiting for Stiles to come back—hoping and praying for Stiles to come back. He swallowed and drew up all of his courage as he shoved the phone back into his pocket and side-stepped into the opening created by the indentation in the door.

Inside, the warehouse was in obvious disrepair. A desk sat dilapidated in the corner, a lamp with no light bulb perched on the corner, looking almost inviting. A layer of dust coated most of the surfaces in the room, and Stiles’ flashlight caught the particles floating around in the air. He swung the beam downward to look at the floor and saw one clean path through the dirt and grime. The path looked well-worn, but it was still new enough not to disturb the rest of the dust around it. Stiles’ heart clenched in his chest, and he shut off the flashlight. It was time.

Stiles had only been working with Deaton and Derek on how to control his magical abilities for a couple of months now, and while he was still struggling to produce magic, he could feel the presence of it, especially if it was strong. Stiles closed his eyes and focused on the center of his chest, at an area just a little deeper than his heart. He felt the pinpricks of energy and awareness rise within him, and it was no sooner than the tendrils of his energy had breached the surface of his chest that he was struck with the tang of magic. He tasted it, the bitter, putrid acidity of dark magic for magic’s sake. It was the same energy that raged inside of him for weeks as he struggled not to drown under the power of the nogitsune.

“I’m in way over my head,” he whispered, and took a shuffle step backward. When he came into contact with a solid object behind him, Stiles froze and his shoulders fell forward. Though the body was cold, there was no mistaking it for anything but a body. And it was angry. Stiles’ energy recoiled and slammed itself into his chest, burrowing away to escape the white-hot rage emanating from behind him. As slowly as he could manage, Stiles took a step forward and turned around, finding himself face-to-chest with what he only assumed could be the Jinn.

In all of the research that Stiles had done, he hadn’t really thought about how tall the creature would be. At nearly six feet, Stiles considered himself to be pretty tall, but the thing towered over him at seven feet easily, and Stiles had to make a concerted effort to look up so that he wasn’t staring into the tangle of black tattoos that shifted along the Jinn’s chest, morphing into sigil’s and turning a deep, hot red as the shapes solidified.

“This is my house,” the Jinn said, and Stiles opened his mouth, and then snapped it shut again. He swore that the thing hadn’t moved his lips, but Stiles heard the cold, calculated voice clearly in his head. The room started to spin. “You’re more powerful than my last snack.” A humming started in Stiles’ ears, louder than the tinnitus he’d come to live with, as he blinked the Jinn in and out of focus. He thought of Scott, of how right Scott had been all along. He thought of Derek.

At the thought of Derek, alone, uncertain and afraid, Stiles snapped back into himself. He darted forward and turned a sharp right, throwing his backpack over his shoulder to grab the knife. He dropped the jar on the ground and dragged the knife through the blood, ignoring the stink of it as it burned his nostrils, and whipped around. The creature was gone.

“Shit.” There was silence, and then Stiles heard the voice in his head again, crystal clear and disorienting in volume. Stiles staggered forward.

“You think you can fight back. How quaint. You’ll dream like the others dreamed.” There was shuffling behind him, and Stiles turned, his grip on the knife tight, skin stretched taut over his knuckles. He saw dust and darkness and turned again, searching for the source of the voice that was coming from his head. Stiles pushed his empty palm into his eye socket, trying to gouge out the voice so that he could focus, but when he opened his eyes again, the Jinn was there. Stiles felt the punch suck the breath out him and gasped for air, doubling over. The knife clattered onto the floor and Stiles felt his feet lift from the ground as the creature hefted him up under his cheekbones. Stiles’ jaw creaked, and he kicked his legs as a last attempt to get free.

“I have, I have friends…they’ll find—“ Stiles started, but his voice was hard to find, his tongue thick and lazy in his mouth the way that being drunk made it. And then his whole body gave into the desire to relax, slumping forward. He braced himself for the fall, but then he was still upright, even after his knees buckled. Stiles rolled his head up at the ceiling and found his arms fastened to a chain in the rafters. He wanted to panic, he wanted to beg for his freedom. He wanted to get free, to find Derek…No. Stiles wanted to—

 

“Sleep,” the voice in his head instructed him. So Stiles slept.

* * *

 

The two hours while Scott waited in the car passed in cramped, uncomfortable silence. He turned on the jeep for music briefly, but when the car went back to sleep for a fourth time, he let it stay that way. He fidgeted with the ends of his shirt, contemplated going to get Stiles, and then thought about going to get Derek. When he thought about what Stiles would do to him if he found out that Scott had called the cavalry, he would never hear the end of that. Scott was rightfully more afraid of Stiles’ wrath than Derek’s rage.

Still, when the alarm started buzzing on Stiles’ phone that two hours had passed, and Stiles still wasn’t back, Scott took a deep breath and sent the text messages to Derek as he’d been instructed. After he sent them to the sheriff, he called him. He answered on the fourth ring.

“Stiles?”

“It’s Scott.” The voice on the phone shrank.

“Scott? What’s wrong with my boy?”

“Can you come to Derek’s apartment? There’s…something’s wrong.”

“Scott. Where is my son? Where’s Stiles?”

“He—“

“Is he dead? You put him on the phone, Scott. Where is he? Where’s…where’s—“

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Just...” The phone started beeping incessantly in Scott’s ear and he growled to pull it away and check the name on the caller ID. Derek. “Look, sheriff, I’m really sorry, but I have to go. I’ll explain everything but if I miss this call from Derek, he might actually rip my throat out. Just get to the apartment and I’ll explain everything there.” Scott hung up to the sheriff’s protestations and clicked over to answer Derek’s call.

“Stiles.” Derek’s voice was hoarse and angry. “I thought you said that you would let us handle this. Where are you?” The anger bled into fear and a hint of something that Scott had never heard in Derek’s voice before. “Stiles, answer me!”

“It’s, uh, it’s Scott. Stiles is—“

“You idiot! You let him go in by himself, didn’t you?” Scott was silent. “Didn’t you!?” Scott started the jeep and started to drive.

“Yes! Yes, I did, and I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to let him go but he made me. What was I supposed to do?”

“What were you su—you were supposed to _stop_ him. You’re a damn werewolf, Scott. You really don’t think you could have stopped him if you tried?”

“Oh, yeah,” Scott snarled. “Like we’ve ever been able to stop Stiles from doing something that he had his mind set on!” Derek started to say something, and then growled. “I’m on my way to your apartment. So is Stiles’ dad. I’ll explain when I can.” Scott hung up on Derek and drove, pushing the jeep as fast as it would go and ignoring the whine it made as he wound around the curves of the city.

He pulled into the driveway moments before the flashing lights of a Beacon Hills Police Department cruiser sped into view. The sheriff jumped out of the car and onto the pavement, running up to where the jeep was parked. Scott opened the door and got out, met with a stern, confused look. Scott shook his head and sighed, and shrugged his shoulder toward the house. John took a deep breath, steadied himself, and fell into line next to Scott as they walked up the corridor to the apartment.

Derek tore the door open as they approached, his shoulders tucked high around his ears in rage and fear and concern. He took one look at the sheriff and knew that he felt much the same. He smelled the same thing off Scott and sheriff Stilinski that he knew was radiating off of himself: desperation. “Inside,” he managed to growl at Scott. He gave the briefest of nods in the direction of the sheriff. “Now.”

After everything that happened, Derek had moved out of the loft and into an apartment complex catty-corner to the preserve. It was a large enough space that Derek didn’t feel claustrophobic, but was also small enough that when he was by himself, he wasn’t drowning in his loneliness. At the end of the entryway, the hall broke off into three directions: the bedroom, the living room, and the kitchen. After pointing Scott and the sheriff in the direction of the living room, Derek headed for the kitchen and pulled a beer out of his fridge, the brand that Stiles had let slip once his father liked best.

Then, he sucked in as deep a breath as he could manage and rested his head on the cool, metallic finish of the refrigerator, thinking about Stiles. His first thoughts were angry, cruel and vengeful. It served Stiles right, to get caught by the thing that he’d promised he would let the pack handle. He deserved that much. But the next thing he thought about was how helpless Stiles would truly be with the Jinn; trussed up and lolling in and out of consciousness, Stiles would no doubt compare where he was to what the nogistune had done to him, and he would blame himself for ever having to be in this situation. Derek clenched the beer in his hand. Even if it was his fault, Derek knew why Stiles had done it.

About a month after everything happened, Stiles came to Derek in tears at four thirty in the morning, begging to know what was real, for Derek to show him some kind of proof that he was still himself, really himself, and that he wasn’t dreaming.

_“I don’t care! I don’t care, Derek! You might as well just kill me. It’ll never go back to being normal. If I freak out like this every time I have a nightmare, I’ll never be able to go back to me life.” Stiles hiccupped and sobbed even harder into the soft cotton of Derek’s t-shirt. Awkwardly, Derek put his hand on Stiles’ back and stroked it up and down, feeling the muscles jump and tense as they tried and failed to relax under his touch. Inside, his heart ached. He knew what it felt like, wanting to die because it felt like your insides were rotting away._

_“I know how you feel,” Derek said slowly. Stiles stilled under his hand and he felt the anger start to roll off of him in waves. “Not like that,” he said quickly. “I can never imagine what it was like to be…possessed physically. But Kate…she made me want to die. I wanted to die for a long time, because I thought I still loved her.” Derek sighed and clenched his jaw. “Before the fire, before I trusted her, I was afraid of her. She made me feel wild in a way that I didn’t like. We started to experiment with things that I wasn’t ready for, but she just kept telling me that I was so much more grown up than she thought when I would do as she said._

_“Physically, I knew that I had to own all of my actions, but emotionally, I was all hers. There was this one time…we were at this cheap no-tell motel and she tied me down with rope that had been soaked in wofsbane water. She’d…I’d let her tie me up before, but not with anything that I couldn’t get free from. And then she blindfolded me and I begged her to stop, to let me go.” Stiles shivered in Derek’s arms and Derek felt his heart pounding while he listened, thumping along at a speed that rivaled Derek’s as he told the story._

_“And then she told me that she thought I was supposed to be good and grown up, and that if I knew what was good for me, I would stop struggling.” Derek swallowed the lump in his throat, felt it move down into his stomach and stay there. “So I did. And I never told her no again after that. It was only a couple months later that she told me to leave the door unlocked so she could come for me that night.” Derek fell silent and resumed rubbing Stiles’ back, who still seemed to have no intention of speaking. The sobbing had subsided into intermittent sniffles, though, so Derek tried to think that he was helping. After a long silence, Stiles cleared his throat._

_“How do you do it?”_

_“Do what?”_

_“Life. How do you wake up and get through another day over and over again when you know that you’re really not in control of anything? I feel like I’m never going to get that back. I’m never going to feel like I can take care of things myself again.” Derek was quiet for a moment before he answered._

_“See, the problem with what I was doing with Kate was actually not…what we were doing. It was who she was, and why it was happening. But I…dominance and submission taught me a lot about control that I had the chance to explore when I moved up to New York.”_

_“Can you help me?” Stiles asked, and Derek’s heart broke at how small, how frail and fragile Stiles sounded. He never sounded this way, not even bruised and bleeding._

_“What do you need?”_

_“I need to be in control.”_

“Derek!” Scott’s voice cut into Derek’s thoughts, and he pulled his forehead away from the fridge in a quick motion that left him a little dizzy. He walked briskly to the living room, pressed the beer into the sheriff’s hand, and sat.

“Sorry,” he murmured. Derek was spiraling without Stiles, and he cursed himself for needing the man to help keep him stable. “I was…thinking.” The sheriff looked meaningfully at Derek and Scott just scrunched up his face. “Where is he, Scott?”

“I’m so sorry, Mr. Stilinski. I tried to convince him not to go. And to call Derek or to do anything but I couldn’t stop him. He went to find it and he made me promise that if he wasn’t back in two hours that I would tell you two.”

“It? What’s _it_?” the sheriff asked.

“You’ll want to drink that,” Derek answered before Scott could. Another look passed between them, and John opened the bottle and took a long pull. “Stiles was right about the kidnappings that have been happening. It’s supernatural. Have you ever heard of Jinn?”

“And not the alcohol,” Scott tacked on. Derek glowered at him, and Scott withered under the look.

“No, I-I haven't,” John admitted, looking more and more worried every second.

“A Jinn is similar to a genie. But they’re not…they’re not good. They trap you in a dream world and suck the energy out of you until you die.” Stiles had always been so much better at tact than Derek, he noticed as Scott winced and the sheriff paled, taking another long drink of his beer. “Stiles is strong. He’s got more time than most people do.” Derek hoped he sounded convincing enough to believe himself. It seemed to be enough, because the sheriff was nodding again, and Scott got up to start pacing. Derek relayed most of the information that Stiles had told him, making sure to let the sheriff know that all of Stiles' research was up in his room.

“So, how are we supposed to stop it?” Scott asked when Derek finished. “Stiles has a silver knife and he made me find some lamb’s blood in Deaton’s stuff but now I'm not so sure that's really gonna—“

“Seriously, Scott?” Derek hissed. “You let Stiles go out by himself with some half-cocked plan that you believed from the plotline of an episode of _Supernatural_!? Are you insane?” Derek roared, and even the sheriff looked in that moment like he didn’t want to get on Derek’s bad side.

“I couldn’t stop him. He went off on his ‘tortured hero’ thing. All that stuff about not wanting to let us get hurt. He…Mr. Stilinski, I’m so sorry.” Scott turned away from Derek to face his best friend’s father, who looked pained and resigned. He knew his son, knew that there was nothing they could have done for this to have ended any differently.

“Well, we’re certainly not going to get him back yelling at each other,” the sheriff said finally, putting on his cop voice. “Derek, you tell me what I should be doing and I’ll do it. I just…you get me my son back, do you understand me?”

Derek looked at Scott. “You call Deaton. Tell him we need him. I’ll call the rest of the pack. Sheriff, as much as I’d like you to be involved, the best thing for you to do right now is to go home. And then when they ask if you’ve got any leads on this case, you tell them no. And you stay away from the warehouse. That thing won’t hesitate to string you up, too, and we’re no good to Stiles if we get caught, too.” John sighed, drained the rest of his beer, and nodded.

“I’ll pull patrol from the area, tell them that I think we’ve got a lead in another direction.” He stood, and Derek followed suit. “You boys be safe.” Scott nodded and the sheriff clapped him on the shoulder before making his way to Derek to shake his hand. “You’ll get him back,” he whispered, like it wasn’t a question. It wasn’t quite a demand, either, and it left Derek feeling a multitude of things that he filed away for another time, but it felt almost like trust.

Scott and Derek were on their phones the minute that the cruiser pulled away. Derek apologized to everyone as they answered, all in various stages of getting ready for their nights: some for bed, others for a night out. But everyone dropped their complaints with the same three words that made Derek feel cold and hollow every time he said it.

“Something has Stiles.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, there is a brief flashback of Derek talking about his relationship with Kate, and it brings up consent issues. There is nothing explicit.


	3. Life is but a Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Stiles wakes, it takes him a long moment to remember where he is, and it's only when he remembers what happened that he has to decide what he's going to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the angst chapter. I swear it gets...a little happier? after this. See end notes for descriptions of trigger warnings in this chapter.

“Stiles, honey,” called a voice, feminine and caring and muffled and _familiar_. Stiles groaned as he rolled over, waking up slowly and falling off the bed. He huffed. Just another day, then, he figured, but when he looked up through the window, he saw the dusky swirls of pale orange and purple that came with sunset. Stiles didn’t know how long he’d been sleeping, but it had been a long time since he’d slept the day away.

“Is he up yet? That boy has to stop taking naps in the middle of the day or he’s never going to get a good night’s sleep,” asked a rougher voice that sounded familiar. The higher voice laughed, tinkling bells that filled Stiles with a warm sadness that he didn’t know how to stomach.

“He just fell out of bed. He’ll be down in a minute. Stiles, sweetie, we’re having breakfast for dinner. You’d better hurry before Derek gets here and eats all your pancakes.” Stiles’ ears perked up at the mention of Derek’s name, but his head still clung to sleep like he’d been out drinking the night before. There was no acidic aftertaste of bile in his mouth, though, and he knew that couldn’t have been it. Still, though, as he rubbed his eyes and looked down at his clothes, he could tell that something was off.

“Coming,” he heard himself grunt, and the presence on the other side of the door walked away. Stiles stretched and looked in the mirror while he yawned. When he closed his eyes, the rattle of chains flashed in his ears. Stiles frowned, looked at himself a little harder, and gasped. The rattle of chains came again, and his wrists burned. Terror gripped Stiles’ heart chest as he felt wholly out of place with where he was, even though he was…home? He spun around. The room looked the same, everything was in the right place, almost like he was the thing that was out of place, and not his surroundings.

“Stiles, come on,” the gruff voice, his father, he recognized, barked from the bottom of the stairs.

“Yeah, yeah, Dad, I’m coming.”

A few minutes later, Stiles tumbled downstairs and into his normal spot at the kitchen table, the smell of pancakes perking him up and dragging his head out of the fog. He frowned at that. The last time his dad had made pancakes, he’d nearly set the kitchen on fire. Stiles looked up from the table and found his father by the refrigerator, pulling out the gallon of milk. His eyes shifted to the woman with her back to the table, piling up the rest of the pancakes onto a plate and pressing paper towels over the bacon to drain the grease. Stiles felt a pit in his stomach crawl its way up his throat, and the word he croaked came out of him like it had to rip through his vocal cords to get past his lips.

“Mom?”

Part of him felt ridiculous calling her name like that, and as she and his father whipped around to look at him, to make sure that nothing was wrong, Stiles felt foolish. But there was another part of him, a bigger part that missed her deep in his core, like she’d been gone before.

_“Stiles, I need you to come with me.” His father looked exhausted, and, terrified and mustering all of the courage he could at eight years old, took his father’s hand as they walked into the hospital room._

_The beeping machines brought tears to Stiles’ eyes, but he crawled onto the bed with his mother like he always had when she’d first come to stay at the hospital. Claudia raised one frail, thin hand to rest on his back while he pressed against her side, careful not to crush any of the tubes._

_“There’s my perfect boy,” she whispered, but Stiles knew it was because she couldn’t use her regular voice anymore._

_“Hi, mommy,” he whispered back. John coughed and left the room._

_“I need you to do something for me, pumpkin,” she told him, and he nodded vehemently against her arm._

_“Anything you need!”_

_“I need you to take care of your father for me, okay? He’s not going to want to eat his vegetables and get enough sleep when—” Claudia paused and sighed._

_“When what, mommy?”_

_“Well, when mommy can’t come home, baby.” Stiles sat up and looked at her, really looked at her, then. Her eyes sunk down in her head in a way they never had before, and the veins in her face and arms were blue and green and thin. This woman, this woman looked more like an alien than his mother._

_“What are you talking about?”_

_“You know how I got sick, so I had to come to the hospital, right?” she asked, like she was too tired to have this conversation right now._

_“Yeah, but daddy says the doctors are here to make you feel better. Like Scott’s mom. She’s supposed to fix you.” Stiles sniffled and felt the sting of tears. He turned his hand over to wipe his nose on the back of his jacket._

_“The doctors tried real hard, my love, but I think God wants me to come home to live with him now.”_

_“I hate God! He can’t have you. Tell him to get his own mom.” Claudia chuckled, but it ended in a moan._

_“Stiles, sweetheart. I know you don’t understand now, but I need you to promise me you’ll take care of your father. You’re so young. You’ll be able to make it knowing I’m just a little angel on your shoulder, but your dad—he’s been used to having me in his life for a long time now. You’ve got to take care of him so he can take care of you.” Stiles heard the machines beep faster, and his mother’s breath came more quickly. Stiles furrowed his brow in confusion. She cooed his name, his real name, and put her hand on his face._

_“Don’t go, mommy,” he whispered, clutching the hand in both of his, crushing it against his cheek. She smiled at that, and then closed her eyes just as John came back into the room._

_“You watch my boy, John,” she murmured, and then she was gone._

“Stiles, are you okay?” Claudia asked, and Stiles noticed then that he was sitting on the floor with his arms covering his face. His chest ached like he’d been hyperventilating, and both of his parents crouched by him. His father looked uncertain, and his mom reached out to touch his forearm gingerly, like he might break. He felt the tears before he registered that he was crying, and then he threw his arms around his mother and held tight, sobbing for ten years of lost time and undoing a hurt that had scarred him in ways he still hadn’t figured out.

“Stiles.” It was his father who spoke this time, voice growing more and more concerned at every body-heaving sob, but Stiles couldn’t make them stop. Instead, he breathed through them to speak.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I’m sorry. I guess I just had a really bad dream. Mom, you were gone. Dad and I…we were so lonely.” Stiles heard his voice break, and his mom whispered his name in the way only she knew how, stroking the small, soft hairs on the back of his neck.

“Oh, baby. Don’t you let a dream get to you like that.” He felt the warm press of her lips against his temple, and his body relaxed. The sobs stopped, and Stiles nodded against her shoulder. “I’m right here, see?” He pulled back and looked into her face, a face full of joy and light and warmth and vibrant, living energy.

“Yeah. I don’t know what all that was about,” he murmured, embarrassed. His parents shared a look between them, but the moment was interrupted by a knock on the door. “I’ll get it,” he breathed, knocking past them to get to the door. His mind supplied that it had to be Derek, and his stomach turned in a familiar, exhilarated knot at the thought of seeing his face. If anyone could put this strange sense of uncertainty behind him, Stiles knew it would be Derek.

“Hi,” Derek said, smiling wide as Stiles pulled open the door. Stiles took a step backward, and Derek pressed inside, unaware that Stiles had stepped back in confusion and not in an invitation. This Derek was exactly like he knew he would be, like he expected, but there was a part of him, the same part that had been so adamant that his mother was gone, who expected someone else. But there was Derek, all smiles and bright eyes and good evening kisses, and Stiles didn’t know what to do, other than to close the front door and follow behind Derek’s broad shoulders and back into the kitchen.

“Derek, sweetheart,” his mother cooed, kissing him on the cheek. His father shook Derek’s hand, and Stiles watched the interaction with something akin to shock on his face as Derek greeted them back, like this was natural.

“Claudia, John, it’s nice to see you again,” he said, flashing another smile and reaching behind him to tug on Stiles’ hand. “And it’s nice to see you, too, Mr. Space Cadet,” he joked, kissing Stiles between his furrowed brow.

“Sorry,” Stiles mumbled. “I’m having an off day, I think.” Derek nodded sagely, like he had any idea what Stiles was talking about, and together the four of them sat down at the dinner table. The conversation happened around Stiles, and everyone seemed to be content to let Stiles stare at all of them. His father didn’t complain when his mother pushed spinach into his egg whites, and when he went to the fridge for another drink, he came back with orange juice instead of a beer. Derek wore a collared shirt unbuttoned at the throat and the sleeves rolled up over his elbows. He looked so at ease, so happy. Everyone looked happy. Stiles wanted to take a picture of them, but he couldn’t for the life of him think of why.

A thud sounded somewhere that Stiles couldn’t quite place behind him, but somewhere distant, and Stiles jumped, knocking his knees against the table. All of the plates on the table jerked and Derek steadied the glass of milk on the table in front of him. The conversation stopped as everyone, once again, stared at Stiles like he’d grown an extra head.

“Are you sure everything’s okay, son?” his father asked, worry creeping back into his voice. Somewhere in him, that worry was comforting, like it was normal, and Stiles grabbed at his head.

“Not really, no,” he admitted under his breath. “None of this…none of this can be happening.” But why? Stiles squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of why. There were small things: a funeral, empty bottles of whiskey, glowing red eyes, dirt and grime and flashes of blood. There was laughter, too, but it wasn’t this kind of picture-perfect family laughter. His life, it wasn’t this. This was so…calm.

“Stiles,” Derek said, putting his hand on Derek’s wrist, trying to pull it away from his head. Stiles pulled away like he’d been stung, pushing his way away from the table as his heart thudded in his chest.

“It’s a dream,” he yelled. “You’re fake! All of this is fake. You’re…I’m…where’s the Jinn? Where’s the Jinn, Derek?” When he looked up, his family was standing, hands up in some kind of surrender, but his father looked like he was half a step away from reaching for his police radio. He knew what the code would be, too: 51-50. “I’m going upstairs. Alone. I need…” he needed to calm down this fake family before they stopped him from figuring out how to get out of this dream. “I need to really watch my Adderall consumption and how much I’m sleeping,” he said, dropping his hands and trying not to look as defensive and on edge as he felt. “I guess I had some pretty vivid dreams last night.” He laughed, and it was without humor, but the tension started to ease.

“You could also try going to sleep at a normal hour, and not insisting that you stay up playing those awful video games with Scott all hours of the night,” his mother chastised, but there was no malice in her voice. There never was. Pieces of his disjointed reality started to come together as he realized what it meant that he was sitting here with his family, with Derek as a seemingly permanent fixture: this was the dream. And as everyone eased back into the dinner routine, throwing concerned glances at Stiles from time to time, he realized that it was his dream. His mother was alive, his dad wasn’t a drinker, everyone approved of Derek, who seemed happy, which meant there had been no fire. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, and he picked up his fork to cut into the fluffy dough of his pancakes that only his mother knew how to make.

A nagging worry passed through him as he thought about what would happen if he didn’t find his way out soon, if the others couldn’t come and rescue him. But thinking about that meant thinking about the life in which everything was a mess and his heart ached with the loss of his mother and so many others every single day of his life. Surely, reality could wait until after one happy, family meal together.

That night, after dinner and ice cream for dessert, Stiles’ parents excused themselves to the couch to watch tv, leaving Derek and Stiles hovering in the alcove between the kitchen and the living room, watching them. Stiles leaned into Derek’s chest, comforted at least by the familiarity of this feeling.

“Come on, let’s go upstairs,” Derek said, and Stiles nodded, allowing himself to be herded up the stairs. Once they were in Stiles’ room, Derek was closing the door and pressing in close to his space. This Derek was just as needy as his Derek, the real Derek, Stiles reminded himself as he pulled Derek’s hips closer and leaned in to kiss him.

“Tell me what you need,” Stiles instructed him, sucking his earlobe while Derek sighed against him.

“I need you,” he murmured against Stiles’ neck, and Stiles smiled.

“I got you, big guy. Kneel for me.” Derek stilled, and Stiles’ smile froze in place. “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean, kneel?” Stiles pushed Derek back a step so that he had some room to breathe.

“I mean, get on your knees for me so that we can go over what we’re going to do tonight?” Stiles’ heart picked up in his chest, feeling the panic rising as Derek took two quick steps backward to sit on the bed, holding up a hand when Stiles tried to come closer to him.

“I know I like to be bossed around a little bit, but when have I ever had to kneel for you? I’m your boyfriend, not some sex slave. What’s going on with you today?” Stiles couldn’t breathe. His heart continued to hammer away in his chest, and Derek acted like he couldn’t even hear it. Stiles shut his eyes. _Because he can’t hear it_ , he thought bitterly. _Because he’s human_. Stiles flopped into his desk chair and took short, gasping breaths.

“I need you to go.”

“Stiles—”

“Now. Come back later. I’m…this isn’t a great day. I don’t want to talk about it. Go.” Stiles opened his eyes to stare at his fingers, making sure they weren’t floating around in space before counting them as quietly as he could. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six.” By seven, Derek was up and out the door. He heard the muffled, concerned sounding conversation downstairs before the front door opened and closed, and Stiles gave himself over to the panic.

His mom was here in this world. Alive. His dad was happy. Healthy. And all of that was good, so good that Stiles thought it might be perfect. But not having Derek submit the way he usually did, the way he craved to, made Stiles feel weak and out of control. He gasped as he realized that was exactly what was happening. It felt like he was drowning. He had to choose, and even before he knew that, he knew he would choose Derek.

As Stiles staggered onto his bed, still gasping for air, he realized his mother had been right all those years before: he could get on with his mother as his angel on his shoulder. But Derek, Stiles decided before the panic and lack of oxygen made him pass out, _his_ Derek he wouldn’t live without.

* * *

 

Stiles lived his life for the next few days like this, saying good morning and good night to his mom, talking to her, remembering the way she hummed while she cooked and how his dad liked to pick her up and spin her around, telling her that she was the moon and the stars and the only thing he ever wanted to see in the sky. It made Stiles' chest hurt to know he had to leave.

When Derek came over next, a Wednesday, Stiles tried his hardest to be the person that this Derek expected him to be. He reminded himself that this Derek had a squeaky clean arrest record, wore collared shirts that he rolled up around his elbows, smiled, and was allowed to call his father John. They looked exactly the same, his Derek and the man in the dream, but to Stiles, they were two completely different people.

The knock on the door made Stiles rise to get it, and when he saw Derek’s bright, smiling face in the window, he double checked to make sure that he had ten fingers on his hands, just to be sure, before he opened the door. He bit his tongue to avoid asking why Derek hadn’t just climbed through the window and stepped aside to let him in.

“Hey,” Stiles said, and Derek leaned in to kiss him. Stiles obliged and fell into the kiss when he realized that both Derek’s tasted the same. He sighed into the kiss and Derek fell against him again, easily. “Sorry about the other day.”

“It’s fine. Your parents told me you had some real messed up dream. I figured you just needed to sort through it. You think too much.” Stiles nodded at how understanding this Derek was, how compliant and friendly and open.

“Let me make it up to you?” Stiles breathed as Derek kissed his neck and cupped one hand around Stiles’ cock.

“I thought you’d never ask.” They kissed again and hurried up the stairs like two horny teenagers who were taking advantage of the fact that nobody was home, and it was so juvenile and free that Stiles let himself enjoy it. They were in Stiles’ room and naked before he knew what hit him, and Derek was making the soft babbling noises that Stiles loved so much.

“Sitles,” Derek grunted into the air around him. Stiles had two fingers in Derek’s ass, rubbing unrelentingly across his prostate, forcing Derek to come apart underneath him. Stiles flickered his eyes up to meet Derek’s. Derek licked his lips and tried to find his breath.

“Yeah, Der?” Stiles panted back, rewarded with a groan that rumbled in Derek’s chest.

“I’m so close. Help me get there. Come on, say it, Stiles. Tell me ‘I’ve got you, baby’,” Derek begged, like it was what he was used to, like that was what always sent him toppling over the edge. Stiles’ fingers froze.

_“Yeah, Derek, you’re doing so well. Just a little more, for me.” Stiles looked down at the flush of Derek’s chest, admiring the sweat pooled in the divots of the muscles in his stomach as his abs clenched. The vibrator in his ass tested Derek’s ability to obey, to stay still. His thighs quivered and his feet twitched defiantly, but Stiles knew they were movements Derek had no control over, and he trickled his fingers over Derek’s cock, running one long index finger around the warm metal of the cock ring._

_“Oh, God,” Derek sobbed as the vibrations turned to pulses. “Please, please, please, Sir, please,” Derek babbled, his eyes screwed shut as he forced breath in and out of his lungs._

_“Hey, look at me.” Derek blinked once, twice, and then his eyes focused on Stiles. “That’s right, Derek. Come on, baby. You can do this for me.” The scene came tumbling down around them all at once. Derek’s erection went flaccid in a matter of seconds and his entire body trembled with unshed tears and silent sobs. In his head, Kate hovered over him, her wicked snarl of a smile baring her canines as she looked down at him. She pinched his cheek, calling him baby to tease him when he didn’t want to do what she said. He felt her breath hot on his face as she closed her hands around his throat when he dared ask her for a break. The world swirled around him and Derek gasped for breath._

_“Alpha,” Derek whispered. The vibrator stopped and Derek felt it ease out of him. It wasn’t enough. “Alpha,” he said again as the cock ring came off. “Alpha. Alpha alpha alpha alpha alpha alpha…” Then his wrists and ankles were untied and Stiles stood off to the side of the bed, panic-stricken. Derek continued to whimper his safe word until Stiles whispered his name. Derek looked up in the direction the voice came from, and, on seeing Stiles hovering near the bed, started sobbing._

_“Derek,” Stiles said with a firm kindness in his voice. “You don’t have to talk, but I need to know a few things. Nod if you understand me.” Derek nodded once. “Did I do something to hurt you?” A minuscule shake of the head. “Did I say something?” There was nothing, and then Derek nodded his head and kept it bowed. Stiles took a step closer to the bed, reaching out, and then stopped. “Can I touch you?” Derek nodded his head so violently that Stiles was afraid for a moment he would hurt himself. After pushing down all of the panic and all of the confusion, Stiles knelt down by the side of the bed and put a hand on Derek’s shoulder._

_The touch seemed to bring Derek a little bit closer to the surface, and while he didn’t stop crying, the force of the sobs lessened. “Okay, okay, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere,” Stiles said, stroking down his arm. Derek sniffled. “We’ll get through this together, and we’ll be okay, okay? I’m going to climb back into bed with you. Can you roll over onto your other side so that I can hold you?” Derek started to nod, paused, and then shook his head, like the thought of moving at all was too much. “Okay. That’s okay. Can I come to the other side of the bed and hold you from there?” Again, Derek shook his head. Stiles tried to hide his frustration and took five deep, cleansing breaths._

_“Don’t be mad,” Derek whispered, and his frustration fell away instantly at the tremor in his voice. He pulled his legs closer up to his chest, tucking into as small a ball as he could manage and trying desperately not to look into Stiles’ eyes._

_“I’m not mad, I promise. I want to hold you and I want to figure out what happened so that we don’t ever have this happen again. I’m worried about you and I’m tense, but I’m not mad. Okay?” Derek thought about this and nodded. “Can you tell me how you want me to be touching you?” Derek swallowed and took a deep breath, clearing his throat before speaking again._

_“I’ll scoot back. I need to be able to see your face,” he said, and wriggled until he was no longer a ball by the edge of the bed, but rather one off-center. Stiles climbed back onto the bed with slow, deliberate motions and coaxed Derek’s hand into his._

_“Will you look at me?” Stiles asked, his voice a whisper as he pressed their foreheads together. Derek’s eyes flickered upward to meet Stiles’ for a moment, and then darted back down. “I’ll take it,” he said. “Can you tell me what I did?” This was harder for Derek, and Stiles felt the creases that formed in his forehead while he tried to work through what exactly to say. Derek’s shame at not being able to please ran deep, and while they were working on being okay with saying ‘when,’ talking about it afterward was a struggle. More often than not, it was about Kate, and everything about Kate was a struggle._

_“Don’t call me…” Derek’s voice faltered, like the word he needed to say next was acid on his tongue, and Stiles’ heart sank to his stomach knowing that he’d said something so foul to the man who’d helped him get control back that Derek had trouble saying it. “Don’t call me baby. Not ever.” Somehow, Stiles couldn’t believe that he’d never called Derek that particular pet name before. He was forever murmuring praise under his breath when his hands were on Derek’s body, but he couldn’t recall a single time the word had passed his lips other than minutes earlier._

_“Of course,” Stiles said, leaning down to kiss Derek’s knuckles. “I’ll never say it again.” Derek’s entire body visibly relaxed as he sighed, and Stiles felt the crushing weight of the world lift off his shoulders. Derek pulled out of Stiles’ grasp to roll over and show him his back. Stiles snaked his arm over Derek’s and held him close, fingers splayed out over his chest. “Tell me?”_

_“When I wouldn’t do what she wanted, she’d say it. Partly because she was trying to convince me to do something and partly because she said she only liked me when I was being an adult, a grown up, a man. When she said it, it meant that I disappointed her.” Stiles tensed in anger, but he sighed as he felt Derek squeeze his arm._

_“Never again, Der,” he promised, and Derek sighed the most beautiful sound of relief that Stiles had ever heard._

“Stiles? Stiles, what the hell?” Derek, this one sounding far less broken than the one in his head, shifted underneath him, and the cool air against his fingers reminded him of what exactly he’d been in the middle of. He winced and wondered how long he’d zoned out for.

“I’m sorry?” he tried, wiping his fingers on the bedspread and sitting up.

“What were you thinking about? You were whispering ‘never again’ over and over like a lunatic.” The harsh criticism in Derek’s voice was undercut with the perfect amount of concern that Stiles didn’t feel as insulted as he should have been. Instead, he came up to rest with his head in the crook of Derek’s shoulder.

“I don’t know. It was like I was somewhere else, like we were someone else for a minute.” The words sounded foreign to his ears. He was someone else, Stiles reminded himself. The Stiles that this Derek was used to, the one this Derek wanted wasn’t real. Stiles was real, trapped. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling the musk and comfort of Derek’s scent and groaned. “I ruined the mood.”

“Hey, it’s okay. We’ll go pick your mom up from work, stop for ice cream, and cuddle on the couch until curfew. You’re not the only one who gets lost in their thoughts sometimes, you know. Just…usually other people do it when their hand is not knuckle deep in their boyfriend’s ass.” Derek’s light sarcasm and the imperfect kiss pressed to Stiles’ temple contrasted how heavy Stiles felt. Stiles yearned for all the casual, light affection as Derek pulled away and started to get dressed again. And it made him feel guilty and sick to his stomach, like he was cheating on the one person he’d made something special with. It frustrated him, to know that this version of Derek couldn’t even smell his guilt on him.

“Come on, slowpoke,” Derek said, tossing a shirt at Stiles’ chest. Stiles struggled into it and hopped up to grab some underwear. When they were dressed, with minimal fooling around as they kissed and hip-checked each other around Stiles’ room, Derek held up the keys to his car. “Now, let’s go see a man about some rocky road.”

* * *

 

It was only a few days later, after Derek left after their family dinner and his mother and father had gone to bed, calling good night after him and told him not to stay up too later, that Stiles snuck out of the house. He pulled the emergency break off the jeep and backed it slowly down the driveway, not starting it until he was down the street so he didn’t wake anyone. Armed with nothing but himself, Stiles made his way toward the warehouses. He couldn’t stay here, no matter how much watching his mother smile in the last week and a half helped to put his heart back together one broken piece at a time. He couldn’t stay here, even though his dad looked like he really enjoyed living again, wasn’t always out hunting things and chasing wild animals. No, Stiles realized that he’d grown used to the fighting and the thrill of the adrenaline and the rush of fighting to keep something, no matter how dangerous that had been. He couldn’t be happy in this dream world, not like he thought he could.

“Bye, mom,” he whispered, choking on a sob as he parked the car in the same spot as he had back when he’d been with Scott. “I’m sorry, Derek. I’m sorry, dad. This is so selfish, but I need my life back.” Stiles cursed and got out of the jeep, using his phone to guide him through the familiar maze of concrete and metal boxes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Claudia dies in a flashback that Stiles has.
> 
> In another flashback, Derek safewords out of a scene because of his prior relationship with Kate causing issues when Stiles says the word "baby". I'm sorry there's so much sad kinda-porn in this chapter?
> 
> Tumblr is [thisaway](http://dasbijou.tumblr.com)!


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